COMP 5131
- Introduction to Information Systems
Fall 2008
The Hong
Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Hong Kong
FedEx CIO Carter says his company is in the business of engineering time. Is this a good business vision for FedEx? Why or why not? How vital is IT to this definition of FedEx's business? Use examples from the case to illustrate your answer. [4]Assignment # 1
1. Select a popular product or company that you are familiar with, such as Apple's iPod. Apply Porter's competitive forces model to that product and/or company. Which of the four generic strategies is the company using? [5]
2. An international ad-hoc group of climatologists and oceanographers needs to set up a system to analyze massive amounts of data on ocean temperatures, collected hourly by hundreds of ships worldwide. The technology and hardware for gathering the data and transmitting the data to a computer is in place. What additional hardware might they need for storage and processing? What techniques or software might they use to make their research more efficient and lower costs? [5]
3. The course website has provided a link for Geoffrey Colvin’s article titled The FedEx Edge while we have discussed the innovative use of information systems in the UPS (class handout). Please answer following questions:
A. How do the IT investment strategies and focus of FedEx and its main competitor UPS differ? Which company has better strategy? Why? [4]
B. Is FedEx’s “move, communicate, and shoot” IT strategy a good one for its competitive battle with UPS? Why or why not? Is it good model for competitive strategy for other types of companies? Defend your position. [4]
C.
4. In this part of the assignment you are expected to assist in decision making whether to rent or to buy a new technology. You should use spreadsheet software to compare the total three-year cost of renting from SaaS provider or licensing and maintaining the new manufacturing software.
PeterLee Enterprises would like to implement new production, planning, quality control, and scheduling software for use by 25 members of its manufacturing staff. Management is trying to determine whether to purchase the software from a commercial vendor along with any hardware required to run the software or to use hosted software solution from SaaS provider (The hosted software runs on the service providers computer). Your task is to help management with this rent versus buy decision by calculating the total cost of each option over a three-year period.
The cost of purchasing the software (actually for purchasing a license from the vendor to use its software package) include the initial purchase price of the software (licensing fee of 100,000 $ paid in first year), the cost of implementing and customizing the software in first year (20,000 $), one new server to run the software (a first year purchase of 4,000 $), one information systems specialist devoting half of his or her time to supporting the software (55,000 $ in full time annual salary and benefits with 3-percent annual salary increase each year after the first year), user training in the first year (10,000 $), and the cost of annual software upgrades (5,000 $).
The cost of renting hosted software are the rental fees (2,500 $ annually per user), implementation and customization costs (12,000 $ in the first year), and the training (10,000 $ in the first year).
A. Use your spreadsheet software to calculate the total cost of renting or purchasing this software over three-year period. Please also submit electronic copy of your spreadsheet via WebCT. Identify the lowest-price alternative that meets PeterLee Enterprise’s requirements. [5]
B. What other factors should PeterLee Enterprise consider besides cost in determining whether to rent or buy the hardware and software? [3]
Please provide a hard copy of your answers to the Instructor (before the
deadline). In addition, the electronic copy of your assignment solutions
should also be uploaded from your
WebCT account. Please make sure that you
upload the assignment only once. In case of multiple submissions, ONLY first
submission will be used for grading.
Deadline
The submission deadline for the assignment # 1 is 19/10/2008 [23:59 Hrs].
The assignment # 1 submission after 19/10/2008 will also be acceptable but with a penalty of 50%. However no submission beyond 21/10/2008 [23:59 Hrs] will be accepted.